Compassionate Conservatism

by Jane Calem Rosen

Movement creates hekhsher based on ethics

When you buy food certified as kosher, how do you know that the manufacturer offers its workers a fair wage and benefits package; provides safe working conditions; doesn’t pollute the environment; engages in honest business practices; and, in the case of meat, treats the animals humanely before and during the slaughtering process?

And should you care?

The answer to the last question is an unequivocal "yes," according to a paper written by Rabbi Avram Reisner on behalf of the Hekhsher Tzedek Commission, an initiative of the Public Policy and Social Action Commission of the Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

And if the Conservative movement has its way, consumers will someday be able to easily ascertain the answer to question No. 1. The commission is close to concluding work that will enable kosher food purveyors to submit to a review that will deem their products ethically fit for consumption. Such approval is intended to supplement, rather than substitute for, a label that indicates products have met ritual requirements for kashrut certification.

In his document, Reisner, a former religious leader of the New Milford Jewish Center who is also a member of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, the movement’s legal body, details the halakhic — Jewish legal — underpinnings of five specific areas the commission has identified as appropriate for setting standards of ethical kashrut. The five are wages and benefits; health, safety, and training; corporate integrity, i.e., issues around working cooperatively, sharing information, honest reporting of data, and the like; product development, which includes aspects of animal welfare; and environmental impact. In each area, Reisner cites biblical and rabbinic sources, as well as medieval and later commentators.

For example, regarding the obligation of an employer to fairly compensate workers, including sick and vacation pay, Reisner builds an argument based on the law in Shulchan Arukh (Choshen Mishpat 331:1), which states, "One who hires employees should treat them in accordance with local custom," followed by Joseph Caro’s injunction from the same source, "When the custom was to provide their meals, he should provide their meals, to provide figs or dates or something similar, he should provide it — all in accordance with local custom."

(To read Reisner’s arguments in their entirety, log onto www.rabbimorrisallen2.blogspot.com.) [Al Pi Din]

"We believe that for a majority of Jewish people, regardless of their denomination, the gold standard is tzedek, righteousness. And [with hekhsher tzedek], we make a statement that is uniquely ours, as Jews, to make, since food is so central and tzedek so a critical part of our orientation to the world, that where ritual and ethics really meet is at our dining room tables," said Rabbi Morris Allen, religious leader of Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights, Minn., project director of the Hekhsher Tzedek Commission, co-sponsored by the two organizations that represent Conservative rabbis and the Conservative laity. (The six-member commission is composed of rabbinical and lay representatives.)

In a recent telephone interview, Allen told The Jewish Standard that the Conservative movement is uniquely positioned to insist that both producers and consumers of kosher food heed Jewish ethical standards. "There is no bifurcation of ethics and ritual" in the Conservative approach to Jewish practice, Allen said. On an interdenominational panel on the topic in Chicago in January, Allen said that an Orthodox rabbi expressed embarrassment that "the Orthodox community has refused to address these issues [of social justice in kashrut] all these years," while Allen’s Reform colleague, said Allen, noted that ethics, rather than ritual, was of greater appeal to his constituency.

Allen first used the term hekhsher tzedek in a High Holy Day talk he gave in 2006 after spending that summer chairing a movement commission of inquiry into reported complaints by workers at one of the nation’s leading producers of kosher food, AgriProcessors of Postville, Iowa.

"I came to understand [from my summer experience]," said Allen, "that as someone who promoted kashrut observance, it is not possible to just focus on the ritual aspects, if the production of kosher products are inconsistent with Jewish values and norms from an ethical perspective.

"We need to get across to much of the kosher food industry," Allen continued, "that this [hekhsher tzedek] will be a reward for good work they are doing, an indication that observant Jews can feel really good about buying products produced ethically as well as ritually in a kosher way. So one important message to really reinforce is this is not a replacement for [an] already existing hekhsher, but a secondary statement about this food that is ritually kosher, that you can feel good about the way workers have been treated, the environmental impact of the company, and so forth."

"Unfortunately, we know there may be some companies where ethical shortcuts have been taken [that are] inconsistent with the values that Jewish people know to be correct," said Allen, noting that the absence of a hekhsher tzedek would alert the public to the potential for such abuses.

While the Conservative community is in full agreement on the ethical dimensions of kashrut, said Rabbi Elliot Dorff, chair of the law committee, a question yet to be settled is one of nomenclature. Some movement legal experts have expressed misgivings about applying the word "hekhsher," a term that conveys certification with the full force of halakha, Jewish law, behind it, in this context, said Dorff. These members of the law committee, Dorff explained, say they prefer the designation "siman," which means sign or symbol and therefore would be less authoritative and presumably carry less weight with consumers who observe strict standards of kashrut.

Reisner’s paper, while legal in nature, is "not a tshuvah [a Jewish legal responsum with the force of law]," agreed Allen. "All the areas addressed [in Reisner’s paper] have already been addressed halakhically. We’re not asking the movement or the Jewish people to do something beyond what is required [by Jewish law]. It’s not question of whether there are ethical underpinnings on labor relations or for keeping kosher, for example. These already exist. The movement is already on record against hoisting and shackling in upholding the ethical treatment of animals," another area addressed by Reisner’s legal arguments.

Whether the new label is ultimately called a hekhsher tzedek or a siman tzedek may turn on how broadly or narrowly kashrut is understood, an issue that has come before the law committee in the past, Dorff said, most recently in 2003 with the publication of a responsum co-authored by him and Rabbi Joel Roth against hoisting and shackling. Reflecting Roth’s narrower interpretation of kashrut in this instance, Dorff observed, "Joel was very careful to say that shackled and hoisted animals were still [ritually] kosher," adding, "I went along with his language [in order to] rule out the practice."

But however the name game eventually ends, with its latest foray into kashrut certification, the Conservative movement has made another important statement, Dorff suggested. "Until recently, not officially, but in fact, the Conservative movement ceded to Orthodoxy the control of kashrut." He added, "That no longer is the case."


Article Series
This article is part 1 of a 2 part series. Other articles in this series are shown below:

Compassionate Conservatism
A look at sources

In the Diaspora: 'Hechsher tzedek'

Samuel Freedman , THE JERUSALEM POST
November 29, 2007

Midway through his now-famous letter from the city jail in Birmingham, Alabama, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. defended the ongoing protest marches against segregation by quoting the prophet Amos: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." At another point in the letter, he referred to the passage in the Book of Daniel in which Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, under threat of death, refuse to bow before the gods of their Babylonian conquerors.

King meant his letter primarily to chastise the moderate clergymen of Birmingham, most of them Christian, who considered the movement's direct action too radical. And in doing so, he cited many religious figures in the Christian sphere, from Jesus and St. Thomas to Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich.

Even so, then and now, King's words carried an unexpected, unintended rebuke for Jews committed to social justice. One of the whopping paradoxes of the civil rights movement was that the Jews who comprised a disproportionate share of white activists and volunteers were largely ignorant of the theological roots of their idealism. With some rare rabbinic exceptions like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Jack Rothschild, they had to learn their own Bible from the black Christians in the campaign.

The divide between religious knowledge and social action persists in American Jewish life. In the parts of the Jewish spectrum with the strongest involvement in tikkun olam, particularly among the secular and unaffiliated, there is the least awareness of the Judaic foundations of that concept. (In fact, there is often an antipathy to religion itself as mere superstition.) In the parts with the deepest knowledge of text and tradition, particularly the Orthodox sector, a formidable apparatus of charities exists almost entirely to serve internal needs.

ONE OF the reasons that American Jewish World Service under the leadership of Ruth Messinger has become such a phenomenon, I am convinced, is that it has overtly connected activism (in the form of Peace Corps-like projects in developing nations) to a disciplined, ongoing study of Jewish texts. It has taken its young volunteers past that inchoate, uninformed sense that there's something sort of Jewish about doing social justice.

Occupying the unstable center of American Jewish life, a place defined more by what it isn't than what it is, the Conservative movement has struggled over the years to reconcile contemporary Jewish political impulses with traditional Judaic religious injunctions. Now at least a partial reconciliation is at hand, and it is one with relevance and resonance far beyond the Conservative movement alone.

A rabbi in suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul, Morris Allen, has led the movement to create a new form of kosher certification, which he calls a hechsher tzedek. As the name implies, this certification would reflect a commitment to justice on behalf of kosher food companies rather than solely their adherence to the laws of kashrut in food preparation.

Put another way, the hechsher tzedek puts the treatment of human beings at least on a par with the treatment of an animal. Many of the humans in question are Latino immigrants who have filled the labor vacuum in slaughterhouses across the United States and been the victims of both exploitative bosses and nativist bigots. The plant that first caught Rabbi Allen's attention several years ago is Agriprocessors in eastern Iowa. The facility, which is owned by a Lubavitcher family and produces the most kosher meat of any plant in the United States, has been controversial for nearly a decade. First the journalist and author Stephen Bloom, in his book Postville, depicted the Hassidic owners and managers not as the rescuers of a depleted local economy but as harsh, rigid outsiders. A series of articles by Nathaniel Popper in the Forward detailed the below-market wages and dangerous conditions in the plant.

While Agriprocessors inspired the hechsher tzedek, if "inspired" is the word, the certification plan would cover the entire $11.5-billion-a-year industry. To earn the hechsher tzedek, an employer, meaning in most cases a large corporation, would have to pay wages consistent with regional rates, provide employees with health care and vacation benefits, and offer safety training to workers in a language they understand, among other requirements. The hechsher tzedek would augment rather than replace existing certifications, most of them issued by Orthodox va'ads.

AT THIS point, the plan is moving gradually yet steadily closer to becoming reality. The Rabbinical Assembly, the organization of Conservative rabbis, has formally endorsed it. The Nathan Cummings Foundation, a respected institution in Jewish philanthropy, has given a $50,000 grant. At its biennial meeting this week, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the movement's congregational arm, is taking up a detailed paper citing the textual bases for the hechsher tzedek in the Tanakh, the Talmud and Shulhan Aruch.

Those citations, at least as I read them as a lay person, make a sensible, unforced link between Judaism and this particular form of social justice. As a theological treatise for labor rights, it reminds me of the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum, a cornerstone of trade unionism in the 20th-century West. It helps, too, that Rabbi Allen was a prominent advocate for increasing kosher observance in Conservative circles before taking up this cause. No one can accuse him of discovering kashrut just in time to change the rules.

I have a hard time imagining that more Jews would become kosher as a result of hechsher tzedek, but the size of the kosher food market suggests that many Jewish consumers, while indifferent to most of the dietary laws, still buy kosher meat for reasons of sentiment, solidarity or perceived quality. How many of them naively think that glatt - a concept, indeed a social construction, that barely existed in the United States before World War II - connotes some higher kosher status, when it's more like higher price?

So just as idealism and commerce have fruitfully commingled in the booming sales of hybrid cars and the campus protests against sweatshop labor, this kind of cross-pollination could find its Jewish expression in hechsher tzedek. It could provide a living object lesson in the relevance of tradition to modernity, and of the inextricable interplay of Judaism and what we like to think of as a Jewish set of values.

And, for once, we wouldn't need a Talmud Torah lesson from a Baptist preacher to get the point.

Eco-kashrut supporters turn their attention to kosher meat

Sue Fishkoff / jta , THE JERUSALEM POST
December 2, 2007

This Thanksgiving, New Yorker Linda Lantos didn't have to compromise her Jewish or ecological values: She served free-range, organic, non-genetically engineered turkey that was also kosher.

"In the last few years it's become important to me to find meat that's organic and kosher, and that's hard," says the 27-year-old chef and nutrition teacher, who has kept kosher since childhood.

The two turkeys Lantos bought this month from Kosher Conscience, a year-old kosher meat cooperative that promotes sustainable agriculture and humane slaughter methods, weren't cheap. But that doesn't bother her.

"I'd rather eat meat less frequently and know where it comes from," she says. "Frankly, meat is too cheap. It's a living thing and should be valued more highly."

For 30 years the eco-kashrut movement has promoted back-to-the-land values of sustainable agriculture, organics and local, seasonal farming. Now a growing number of those Jewish foodies are trying to apply the same values to their meat, demanding that the animals be raised and slaughtered in an ethical manner.

"If I'm going to eat meat, I have to do everything possible to make sure the process is as humane as possible," says Kosher Conscience founder Simon Feil.

Caring for animals is deeply ingrained in Jewish law. The Torah provides for "tzar ba'alat hayim," the need to protect animals from unnecessary pain. That's why kosher slaughter must be done by an observant, trained shochet, or ritual slaughterer, who uses an extremely sharp knife to kill the animal as painlessly as possible, with one cut across the jugular vein.

Many Jews believe that because of this extra religious concern, the kosher meat industry is exempt from the more egregious practices of non-kosher slaughterhouses. But controversies last year at Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher slaugherhouse in Postville, Iowa, buried that myth amid media stories alleging sloppy, cruel killing methods and underpaid, badly trained workers.

The Agriprocessors case was a Jewish wake-up call.

It spurred the Conservative movement to start developing a hekhsher tzedek, a certificate given to food produced according to certain standards of workers' rights and environmental concerns. The certificate will be announced at the Conservative movement's biennial this week in Orlando, Fla.

It inspired Feil, a Brooklyn-based actor, to procure, slaughter and process 24 turkeys using humane practices this month. He found buyers among young New York Jews, and dropped off the turkeys two days before Thanksgiving at an Orthodox synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

It put meat on the agenda of last year's food conference sponsored by Hazon, a nonprofit dedicated to Jewish environmentalism and food sustainability.

Much of the impetus for the socially just kashrut movement comes from Conservative circles, but there's interest within Reform Judaism as well. A committee of Reform rabbis is working on standards for socially just food production along the same lines as the Conservative hekhsher tzedek initiative.

Gersh Lazerow, a fourth-year rabbinical student at the Reform movement's Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, hopes to become a shochet to combine his liberal values with Jewish tradition.
"I think kashrut has value to modern progressive Jewish practice," he says.

"A lot of people are faced with the decision, ethics or kashrut," says Devora Kimelman-Block of Washington, a Hazon activist and longtime supporter of sustainable agriculture. "Or they just decide to be vegetarian."

Kimelman-Block eats meat, but had cut down in recent years.

"I don't feel it's ethically a problem to eat meat," she says, "but I have a problem with the unethical raising and processing of meat."

Last year she decided to enter the business herself. Kimelman-Block says she "knew nothing" about the kosher meat industry when she started.

Doing it all herself, from finding a local farmer with pasture-raised cows, to negotiating with a shochet, to lining up buyers from 14 area synagogues, was a daunting task. But she wanted to teach her daughters to respect the food they ate and understand the Jewish values underlying its production.

"The closer you are to your food, the more holy it is," Kimelman-Block says.

It's easy to be pious when you're talking about fruit, but most people would rather not think about where their steak comes from. That's true particularly in eco-kashrut circles, which are dominated by vegetarians.

In one session at last year's Hazon conference, the group's executive director, Nigel Savage, asked audience members to raise their hands if they ate meat but would not do so if they had to kill it themselves. A "good number" raised their hands, he recalls.

Then he asked those who were vegetarian to raise their hands if they would eat meat they killed themselves - and a different set of hands went up.

Savage found the second response more telling. He says those people were indicating that taking responsibility for killing the animal one eats, making sure it is done humanely and with respect, is the only way to eat meat with integrity.

That's why Hazon is performing ritual slaughter on three goats at this year's conference, which will be held Dec. 5-8 in upstate New York.

On one night of the conference, the goatherd and shochet will explain how a kosher animal is raised, killed and processed. On Friday the goats will be slaughtered, and on Saturday goat cholent will be served.

"For three years Hazon has enabled Jewish people to learn where their vegetables come from, to develop a relationship with the farmer," Savage says. "Now we're taking it a step further."

Not everyone in the eco-kashrut movement favors the plan, as evidenced by the heated discussion on www.Jcarrot.org, Hazon's "Jew and the Carrot" blog. Among the 60 responses to Savage's announcement of the plan were those who applauded it, those who were appalled by Hazon sponsoring a slaughter at all, and one Hazon board member who said he would not attend if the shechita went forward.

Feil, who is in charge of the goat project, insists it will not be "a lurid bread-and-circus" event.

"People should understand what it means when you eat meat," he says. "Seeing an animal killed and then eating it yourself is a very important educational experience."

So far, the eco-kashrut meat activists are a fairly rarefied bunch: It's pretty much just Feil and Kimelman-Block. But they say the market is growing for what they offer.

Kimelman-Block notes that in July she arranged for the slaughter of three cows, and the resultant 400 pounds of kosher meat sold in three weeks. But in October, she sold 1,200 pounds of meat from six cows -- $11,000 worth -- in less than a week.

"I could have sold as much as I had," she says. "People were knocking down the door."

Some people believe such a product will only serve a niche market. The process of raising and slaughtering the animals is difficult, and there is little interest from the Orthodox, who are the bulk of kosher meat consumers.

Joe Regenstein, a professor of food science at Cornell University, advises Jewish groups and the meat industry on issues of animal welfare. He is part of a two-person negotiating team that is working to develop guidelines for humane practices amenable to the two dozen or so fervently Orthodox rabbis who are responsible for the glatt kosher industry.

A year ago, he says, the two sides reached consensus.

"They agreed to put it in writing," he says. "I am still waiting for that document."

Even if few people buy the meat, activists believe that growing publicity for the issue will have an impact on the kosher meat industry in general.

That's what happened to Wise Organic Pastures, a kosher poultry and beef distributor in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Rachel Wiesenfeld, who owns the company with her husband and son, says that as far as she's concerned, all kosher slaughter is humane. But when Whole Foods offered to carry their chickens if they were certified by Steritech, a company that verifies humane food production methods, the Wiesenfelds quickly agreed.

"Everyone was into this humane, humane, humane, so we went along with it as well," she says.

The Wiesenfelds are ready to go to the same lengths with their kosher beef in the hopes that Whole Foods will start carrying that, too.

It's clear to Wiensenfeld that the market is growing, and she says it's not just Jews. A customer called her recently complaining about feathers on a Wise Organic chicken -- a customer that clearly is new to kashrut and doesn't know that kosher slaughter is done in cold water, which does not remove all the bird's feathers.

"Just boil a pot of water, put in the chicken for a few minutes," she advises, "and those feathers come right out."

Holiness and Justice: A Fair Trade Approach to Keeping Kosher

Fair Trade News
by Hilary Johnson, LFTN board member
Listen to Rabbi Allen's Interview

Rabbi Morris Allen, of Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights, MN, has been promoting kashrut, Jewish dietary laws, to his congregation for twenty years. He says that kashrut provides “a way in which we as Jews understand a daily opportunity to sanctify our lives, to create a sense of holiness and a sense of awareness of God in our lives.” This consciousness means that Allen takes his food and its production seriously.

More than a year ago, Allen learned of labor abuses at an Iowa kosher meat processing plant that supplied the Twin Cities Jewish community. He was faced with a contradiction: The worker may slaughter an animal according to the laws of kashrut, but he or she may be underpaid and mistreated. What if the ritual is observed, but the ethics are undermined?

Allen distinguishes between “ritual,” the letter of the law that describes specific procedures for kosher slaughter and food handling, and the ethics of how kosher food is actually produced. While he does not privilege one over the other, he thinks current certification practices do. According to Allen, “kashrut has become more and more concerned with whether or not the lung of a cow is smooth, but has forgotten that the hand of the worker is just as important. That’s what heksher tzedek is all about.”

Heksher tzedek, or justice certification, is Allen’s answer to the contradiction of the ritually correct but underpaid worker. Working with a myriad of groups, including local and national committees and nonprofits, as well as a Boston consulting firm, he began creating the heksher tzedek after his trip to Iowa. They are now in the process of defining standards and determining the method of certification. The standards cover six areas: Health & Safety, Wages & Benefits, Training, Environmental Impact, Corporate Transparency, and Product Development. Allen stresses that worker and manager participation has been essential to creating meaningful guidelines within these areas, and that transparency is key to a rigorous certification process. As an example, he describes a hypothetical company that claims to offer health benefits to workers, but upon auditing worker paystubs, certifiers might find no deductions for premiums, indicating that no one is actually signed up for the benefits. Allen gives as one possible reason for this the fact of large numbers of plant workers being migrant workers, many of whom speak or read little English.

Immigrant workers are at the center of the U.S. food system, from production to processing. The heksher tzedek standards, therefore, require that workers receive training in their native languages. As to the larger question of whether a company technically violating the law by employing undocumented workers should receive a heksher tzedek, Allen says that such workers are so prevalent that they virtually form the backbone of U.S. industry. He asserts that legislation like last spring’s Sensenbrenner immigration bill, which would have required deportation of millions of undocumented workers, would bring the kosher meat industry “to a screeching halt overnight.”

The heksher tzedek campaign is not uncontroversial in the Jewish community. Orthodox Jews have traditionally performed kosher certification, and Rabbi Allen's movement is made up in large part of Conservative Jews. Critics question the validity of certification by non-Orthodox Jews, but Allen insists that the heksher tzedek will not be replacing Orthodox kosher certification. He believes it could even bring Jews back to kashrut who have abandoned it because of the common focus on ritual over ethics. He says that the heksher tzedek “is a way to demonstrate our concern for the vertical relationship between ourselves and God and also the horizontal relationship between ourselves and other people.”

Allen believes the heksher tzedek will have appeal to non-Jews as well. He says non-Jews already look for the kosher label for reasons of their own, including concern for food safety. Allen, like many in the fair trade movement, firmly believes that people want to do the right thing, and that they will, when given the choice.

Like fair-trade certified products, items with the heksher tzedek are likely to cost more than those without. Because of the inspection and certification costs, kosher food in general, especially meat, usually costs more than non-kosher food. But Allen points out that being able to buy cheap food often comes with a hidden cost: Exploitation of workers. If the meat costs a little more because the workers who processed it got paid better and received benefits like health care and sick time, he says, “then I would say that’s what it takes in order to demonstrate that keeping kosher really has impact, not only on my own life, and my own relationship to God, but to the society in which I live.”

Making A Difference

Heksher Tzedek: A concept whose time has come, a concept being recognized as significant throughout the Jewish world. From the Jewish Daily Forward "Forward 50":

Pessimists have been warning for decades that as younger generations of Jews continued their acculturation into the American mainstream, those at the leading edge of the drift would float away from Jewish identity, leaving a smaller but more committed core. Optimists, if that’s the right word, predicted that the younger, more acculturated Jews wouldn’t disappear from the scene; rather, their Jewish identities would evolve in new and unpredictable ways, leaving the Jewish community as many small communities, with less and less identifiably in common.

This year’s Forward 50 list shows what look to us, at least, like clear signs of continental drift. When we sat down to take a long look at the community, what we found was not a hardening core surrounded by an evanescent periphery, but numerous pockets of identity taking shape on the landscape, most showing clear signs of solidity, but most quite disconnected from ― even unaware of ― the others. The list that emerged from our efforts reflects that changing topography.

The Forward 50 is not based on a scientific study or survey. The list is compiled each year by the Forward’s staff, based on what we have reported over the past year, what we have heard from community members speaking about other community members and whatever objective signposts ― rising or falling budgets, book sales, published buzz, adoption of new laws or proposals ― can be deemed to indicate public influence.

Membership in the 50 doesn’t mean that the Forward endorses what these individuals do or say. We’ve chosen them because they are doing and saying things that are making a difference in the way American Jews, for better or worse, view the world and themselves. Not all these people have put their energies into the traditional frameworks of Jewish community life, but they all have embodied the spirit of Jewish action as it is emerging in America, and all of them have left a mark…..

(listed under Religion)

Morris Allen
Until last year, Rabbi Morris Allen was known mostly as a local congregational rabbi and promoter of Jewish social justice efforts in the Minnesota Twin Cities area. That all changed when Allen decided to plunge headfirst into the billion-dollar kosher food industry. Prompted by a report in the Forward on working conditions at an Iowa kosher slaughterhouse, Allen pushed the Conservative movement to form a committee to look into the ethical and environmental implications of kosher food. The committee began its work by visiting the Iowa plant, the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, where Allen and others interviewed immigrant workers. Soon after, Allen announced the creation of Conservative Judaism’s Tzedek Hechsher or Justice Certification, a bold new effort to certify kosher food that is produced with ethical considerations in mind. For years, kosher food certification has been dominated by Orthodox authorities, and Allen sees the Tzedek Hechsher as a way of re-engaging Conservative Jews and his own congregants with the spiritual implications of the food they eat. This, not surprisingly, has won Allen the ire of many in the Orthodox world. Questions remain as to just how the new certification would work ― and it is clear that in this case the devil will be in the details. But Allen’s energies show no sign of flagging.

Heksher Tzedek: Moving Forward

On Tuesday, members of the National Heksher Tzedek Commission will convene for their first meeting at Beth Jacob Congregation. The six member commission is co-chaired by Rabbi Michael Siegel of Anshe Emet Congregation in Chicago and Mr. Scott Kaplan of Atlanta, Georgia.

At this meeting the commission will be reviewing the standards and working guidelines formulated for the Heksher Tzedek by KLD, review the work undertaken by Professor David Cobin and several Hamline Law School students relative to state and federal employment law statutes.

The commission will also study the Jewish source material developed by Rabbi Avi Reisner, learn about the magnificent work which Jewish Community Action and the Beth Jacob Social Justice committee have done in community organizing and education, and sign off on a soon to be launched website and informational brochure.

These are exciting days for Heksher Tzedek as we continue moving forward. In a little over a year, a concept first discussed at Beth Jacob Congregation has become a central project of the Conservative movement. Your support is vital in making this a central part of kashrut observance in the years to come.

International KOACH Shabbat

Hechsher Tzedek: Kashrut for the Next Generation

November 2-3, 2007

College students at nearly 50 campuses across the continent will be gathering this weekend for the Fifth Annual KOACH Shabbat. For the past four years Conservative students throughout North America have marked International KOACH Shabbat with a weekend of study and celebration. In 2006 nearly 4000 students on 82 campuses joined together to participate in Shabbat services, schmooze with friends and learn together.

Hechsher Tzedek: The Sanctity of the Food We Eat At Koach Shabbat 5768/2007

Welcome to KOACH Shabbat!

Hechsher Tzedek is an exciting new initiative being undertaken by the Conservative Movement. The text materials we have prepared take a two-pronged approach.

Kashrut:

The sanctity of the food we eat starts not with Hechsher Tzedek, but with that which our tradition teaches regarding what foods are fit and unfit for consumption.

The following texts trace the laws of kashrut in their Biblical sources. In addition to learning about the origins of our dietary laws, this is an opportunity to explore how a framework for eating informs the holiness of our lives in a general way and elevates the meeting of a basic need to a sacred act. The ways in which kashrut serves both to elevate and unify the community are also part of the fabric of this discussion.

Genesis 1:29

God said, "See I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food.

Leviticus 11:2-3

These are the creatures that you may eat from among all the land animals: any animal that has true hoofs, with clefts through the hoofs, and that chews the cud - such you may eat.

Deuteronomy 12:15-16

But whenever you desire, you may slaughter and eat meat in any of your settlements, according to the blessing that the Lord your God has given you....But you must not partake of the blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.

Exodus 23:19

You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

Harold Kushner: To Life! A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking

There is nothing intrinsically wicked about eating pork or lobster, and there is nothing intrinsically moral about eating cheese or chicken instead. But what the Jewish way of life does by imposing rules on our eating, sleeping, and working habits is to take the most common and mundane activities and invest them with deeper meaning, turning every one of them into an occasion for obeying (or disobeying) God.

If a gentile walks into a fast-food establishment and orders a cheeseburger, he is just having lunch. But if a Jew does the same thing, he is making a theological statement. He is declaring that he does not accept the rules of the Jewish dietary system as binding upon him. But heeded or violated, the rules lift the act of having lunch out of the ordinary and make it a religious matter. If you can do that to the process of eating, you have done something important.

Ethical Practice:

Having established what Jewish tradition says about which foods and combinations of foods are permitted to eat, we can now look at a further level of elevating the practice of eating. Grounded in the biblical texts regarding the treatment of workers, we take this discussion further into the rabbinic tradition to gain an understanding of what constitutes the proper work environment. It is critical to note that the absence of appropriate working conditions does not render food unkosher, but that ensuring that the work environment is suitable adds yet more sanctity to the otherwise mundane act of eating. These texts reinforce what qualifies as the Jewish notion of ethical practices in the workplace.

Deuteronomy 24:14-15

Do not oppress the hired laborer who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your people or one of the sojourners in your land within your gates. Give him his wages in the daytime, and do not let the sun set on them, for he is poor, and his life depends on them, lest he cry out to God about you, for this will be counted as a sin for you.

Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 12a:

"His life depends on them." (Deuteronomy 24:15). Why does he climb a ladder or hang from a tree or risk death? Is it not for his wages? Another interpretation--"'His life depends on them' indicates that anyone who denies a hired laborer his wages, it is as though he takes his life from him."

Mishnah, Bava Metzia 7:1

One who hires workers and instructs them to begin work early and to stay late - in a place in which it is not the custom to begin work early and to stay late, the employer may not force them to do so. In a place in which it is the custom to feed the workers, he must do so. In a place in which it is the custom to distribute sweets, he must do so. Everything goes according to the custom of the land.

There was an incident concerning Rabbi Yochanan ben Matya, who told his son, "Go, hire us workers." His son went and promised them food [without specifying what kind, or how much]. When he returned, his father said to him, "My son! Even if you gave them a feast like that of King Solomon, you would not have fulfilled your obligation toward them, for they are the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. However, as they have not yet begun to work, go back and say to them that their employment is conditional on their not demanding more than bread and vegetables." Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel said, "It is not necessary to make such a stipulation. Everything goes according to the custom of the place."

Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 83a:

We need [this example in the Mishnah specifying that local custom undermines an employer's stipulation that workers begin early and stay late] for the case in which the employer raises the workers' wages. In the case in which he says to them, "I raised your wages in order that you would begin work early and stay late," they may reply, "You raised our wages in order that we would do better work."

Saul Berman: from Labor on the Bima, A Publication of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice

The rabbis are here teaching us a profound lesson. The most demeaning form of oppression of a laborer is to assign to him meaningless work. The most ruthless form of abuse of a laborer is to have him engage in an activity which serves no productive purpose and, therefore, prevents him from having any pride in his achievement.

The measure of proper treatment of labor is not simply the physical rigors to which the employee is exposed. The employer has a responsibility to preserve the dignity of the employee through assuring that he or she can achieve a sense of meaning in the labor which she performs.

Hechsher Tzedek:

Next is a statement from the Hechsher Tzedek Commission which sets forth the goals of the Commission and the ideals of the initiative. Note that no meat processing facility has yet to earn this endorsement. Work has begun with Empire Poultry and Agriprocessors; each of these companies has welcomed the Commission into their work environments and given them access to their employees.

The Hechscher Tzedek Campaign is an initiative of the Conservative Movement of Judaism to improve the working conditions, treatment of employees, environmental standards,and business practices in kosher food-producing businesses.

By definition, kosher food is in line with Jewish dietary ritual laws. This campaign will bring kosher food in line with Jewish ethical law and social justice values.

The Justice Seal

The Conservative Movement, in consultation with industry experts, will create a set of standards that will most likely focus on:
1) Health & Safety
2) Wages & Benefits
3) Training
4) Environmental Impact
5) Corporate Transparency
6) Product Development.

Businesses that adhere to these standards will receive some type of “seal”, indicating that the food was produced in just conditions.

The Hechsher Tzedek will not replace existing kosher certification – it will be used in addition to traditional kosher certification. Only food already certified as kosher will be eligible to receive a Hechsher Tzedek.


Pursuing Justice

As Jews, we are in a unique position to advocate for improved working conditions, environmental standards and business practices in kosher food-producing businesses.

We are the consumers of kosher foods. We are in a great position to help kosher food producers meet the desires of their customers, become more just in their practices, and have their products be more attractive. Also, when consumers come together and ask businesses to make change, oftentimes businesses listen.

Our tradition teaches us to pursue justice, and to repair the world.

Many Jews view keeping kosher as a means of sanctifying our world. Hechscher Tzedek is an extension of this value and a concrete way of practicing it.


Additional Resources:

On Kashrut

Abramson, Rabbi Robert, ed., Kosher: Sanctifying the Ordinary, USCJ Department of Education(CD-ROM).

Dresner, Rabbi Samuel, Keeping Kosher: A Diet for the Soul, Rabbinical Assembly and USCJ Commission on Education, 1982.

Klein, Rabbi Isaac, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, KTAV Publishing House, 1979.

Lebeau, Rabbi James, The Jewish Dietary Laws: Sanctify Life, USCJ Youth Department, 1983.

Stern, Lise, How to Keep Kosher: A Comprehensive Guide to the Jewish Dietary Laws, William Morrow, 2004.

My Jewish Learning
USCJ
Koach

On Hechsher Tzedek

Rabbi Morris Allen
Rabbis Move Ahead With New Certification Plan
New York Times
Report of Commission of Inquiry

--Rabbi Elyse Winick

Rethinking Kashrut: An Interview with Rabbi Morris Allen

by Rachel Barenblat
Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture
November 2007

Rabbi Morris Allen is at the forefront of the hechsher tzedek movement, a grassroots effort to change the way Jews think about kashrut. The hechsher is a mark used to certify a food is kosher. Yet, Rabbi Allen found out that such a mark doesn’t guarantee the food’s making is fully in accord with Jewish laws and ethics. Born out of distress at the reported working conditions at Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meat packing plant, hechsher tzedek is intended to be a way to ensure that the foods Jews eat are kosher not only ritually but also ethically.

As he tells the story, Rabbi Allen came to this work almost by accident. A congregational rabbi for twenty-two years, he had concentrated his social justice agenda on prison and immigration reform. Now, he has involved the entire Conservative movement in the hechsher tzedek project. By Allen's admission, they've got a tough row to hoe. At one end of the spectrum are Jews who argue that kashrut is the purview of the Orthodox and ought to stay that way. At the other are Jews who are more concerned with eating sustainably and locally than with the nature or presence of a hechsher in the first place.

It remains to be seen whether the hechsher tzedek becomes part of normative Jewish practice, or whether it stays on the fringes with its cousin eco-kashrut, which, while praised by its proponents, hasn't become widely-accepted. Then again, these days there's unprecedented interest nationwide in eating sustainably and healthfully, so who knows: Rabbi Morris Allen may have picked the perfect moment to let this idea fly. – RB

RB: What's your relationship with kashrut?

MA: I grew up in a home that was kosher, in the way in which families in the Sixties often were -- some members of the family ate treif outside the house (although, for what it's worth, they don't anymore!) My community here in the Twin Cities has promoted kashrut all along. Twelve years ago I embarked on a campaign called Chew by Choice. I wanted to begin to elevate people's understandings that, once you enter into the discussion, you're on the path. Giving up pork or shellfish, for example, is already a way of recognizing the role kashrut plays in the Jewish people's lives.

My approach has always been that kashrut needs to be livable. For people who are neurotic, and Jews certainly qualify, this can really become a crazymaking enterprise! Kashrut needs to be an understanding that in fulfilling this act of eating, I'm bringing God fully into my life. In recent years we've seen kashrut essentially be hijacked by people who are much more concerned about infinitesimally small bugs living on broccoli than about the purpose of the rules in the first place, and that's not how it's supposed to be.

I've been a vegetarian since 1974. My vegetarianism is a result of my commitment to kashrut.

RB: So it's kind of funny that you've become so involved in matters of kosher meat.

AM: How it happened was, in January of 2006, after our kosher butcher in St. Paul had closed, the Lubavitch rabbi in town asked me to work with him to bring fresh kosher meat back to St. Paul. In March of 2006, I made my first visit to Agriprocessors to talk about bringing kosher meat to the Twin Cities. Shalom Mordechai Rubashkin was very lovely to me; I remember he said he didn't understand why the Conservative movement wasn't a bigger customer. I said 'sure, fine, we'll work on that!' We started bringing their kosher meat into the Twin Cities market.

And then in May of 2006 Nathaniel Popper did an investigative piece on worker treatment at Agri, and printed it in the Forward.

I was personally embarrassed. I had staked my local rabbinate on working effectively with Agriprocessors, and I was aghast to read this article! I went to the Chabad rabbi and said, “We have to do something!” That was Friday of Memorial Day weekend. On Sunday he went down to Agriprocessors, and he investigated, and he came back and wrote a report saying he had no idea what Nathaniel Popper was talking about, everything was beautiful, the people were happy, they were singing as they worked, and so forth. But I wanted to put together a group of Conservative leaders to go in and make our own determination.

Five of us, representatives from United Synagogue and the Rabbinical Assembly, spent the summer of 2006 making numerous calls, interviewing people directly and indirectly related to Agriprocessors, including people in Senator Harkins' office, clergy, and so on. In August 2006, we went to Postville for a visit, and it was pretty fascinating. Initially we proposed three major undertakings which, if Agriprocessors would agree, would indicate a sincere desire to address our concerns. We promised them that we would keep our report out of the press in that event. We didn't want to be party to a world in which one Jew exposes another Jew, you know? It didn't seem necessary. We felt that if they would take these three steps, that would demonstrate good faith on their part to clean up their behavior.

RB: But they didn't.

MA: No. We did not hear back from them by the deadline we'd set. It was at that point we realized this was not an issue stemming from one producer of kosher food, but something much deeper.It's a matter of paying attention to all of the ethical demands upon labor laws that are present in Jewish law -- how employers are to treat employees, what kind of safety issues have to be addressed. We read in Torah, for instance, about building a parapet on a house so people don't fall off! In what we build, we have to make sure it's safe for people to be present. Ethics are woven into the fabric of Torah. So we batted around the idea of what we called a hechsher tzedek.

It would be great, we said, if we could be assured that food products that met the standards of kashrut also met the standards of the ethical mitzvot that are incumbent upon us. We need to think in terms of mitzvot bein adam l'chavero [between one human and another] as well as bein adam l'makom [between a person and the Creator]. We should not be eating food that has been produced in a way that has denied the dignity of the labor! We should not be more concerned about the smoothness of a cow's lung than we are about the safety of a worker's hand.

At the end of 2006, the RA and the United Synagogue national board gave us six months to see whether these standards were feasible, and lo and behold, they are. We're reviewing our first set of verifiable objective standards, produced for us by a company in Boston that does market evaluation for social justice mutual funds. That's the meat, as it were, of what we're doing now. Those standards address the six areas Jewish law is concerned about in production of kosher food over and above the laws of kashrut.

RB: And those are...?

MA: Wages/benefits, health/safety, training, corporate integrity, animal welfare where appropriate, and environmental impact.

So we're in the process of reviewing these standards, vetting them through classic Jewish law. The next stages are to talk with industry about this -- how do we move this forward in practical terms? There are some serious issues still to address, but the reality has been that the response in the Jewish community and in the non-Jewish community has been beautiful. The depth of who we are as a people is exposed by this issue.

RB: It sounds to me like there's some overlap between eco-kashrut and hechsher tzedek. I think many Jews today feel the need to choose between eating in a way that fits traditional Jewish dietary practice, and a way that fits their environmental and social values (organic/sustainable food, perhaps belonging to a community-supported farm, etc.) Do you think that binary distinction is valid, and does hechsher tzedek offer a way around the binary?

MA: I want to be working beyond the binary. That's exactly the issue. That's the reason hechsher tzedek has to exist.

I was teaching about this at Camp Ramah Wisconsin this summer -- they took their kids on a trip to Postville [where Agriprocessors is located], and I was there to prepare the kids for what they might see. Someone raised their hand and said, 'so rabbi, you're saying it would be just as good (because it's also Jewish law) to eat food prepared in an ethical way as it is to eat food with a kosher sticker!' And I said, that kind of bifurcation is the issue -- we shouldn't have to decide between one of these or the other.

We need to be in a world where we can say that keeping kosher is the way in which I demonstrate not only a concern for my relationship to God and Torah but the Jewish concern for our relationship to the world in which we live. That's what I really want to get across to people.

In 23 years of my rabbinate I've had a lot of crazy ideas! But this has really become a passion for me, it's central. I mean, here is such a classic opportunity -- this is so obvious that we've overlooked it until now. This is the melding of ritual and ethical law.

Think about the haftarah for Yom Kippur, for instance. Isaiah: 'Is this the fast that I have chosen?' It's not about the fast, it's aout unshackling the enslaved. But at the end, Isaiah says, 'and you've gotta observe Shabbos.' You can't just do one or the other.

For so long there have been wonderful Jews concerned about one or the other of these. This is the project where they meet. It's the classic opportunity to see that Judaism isn't either ritual or ethical, but the union of both. Ethical and ritual meet on our tables. The table for us as Jews has taken the place of --

RB: It's our mikdash me'at, our "little sanctuary."

MA: Right, it takes the place of the altar! Where we have this opportunity to demonstrate that at our core, the totality of Jewish life is understood. When the Temple fell we didn't put altars in our synagogues. The home table becomes the altar.

RB: Thank you.

The United Synagogue and The Rabbinical Assembly Name Commission

The Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism have recently appointed a six-member Heksher Tzedek Commission. This Commission will be co-chaired by Rabbi Michael Siegel of Chicago,Illinois and Mr Scott Kaplan of Atlanta, Georgia. Other members of the Commission are Rabbi Avram Reisner, Rabbi Jill Borodin, Mr Gerald Kobell and Dr Marilyn Wind. In addition, Rabbi Morris Allen has been appointed Director of the project and Dr Richard Lederman is the Professional Staff.

In early November the Commission will be meeting in the Twin Cities to hear a complete update concerning the work which has taken place during the course of the past year.

In a further posting, we will update you regarding the excellent work which Jewish Community Action (JCA); Prof David Cobin and the Hamline University Law students have undertaken; a new Heksher Tzedek website and brochure developed by Tunheim and Associates; and the standards which are being developed by a nationally recognized monitoring firm.

Eco-Kosher Fulfills Law On All Levels

ALAN COOPERMAN
The Washington Post
and CLAUDIA BAYLISS
Tribune Staff Writer

South Bend Tribune September 6, 2007


First she had to find an organic cattle farm near home. Then a "shochet," a person trained in kosher slaughtering, who was willing to do a freelance job. Then a kosher butcher to carve the beef into various cuts, and other families from her synagogue to share it.

All told, it took Devora Kimelman-Block of Silver Spring, Md., 10 months to obtain 450 pounds of meat that is local, grass-fed, organic and strictly kosher. It was a lot of work.

"Here I am, leading this meat thing, and we don't even eat meat in our house," she said.

As a part of a budding movement sometimes called "eco-kosher," which combines traditional Jewish dietary laws with new concerns about industrial agriculture, global warming and fair treatment of workers, Kimelman-Block's effort does make sense. Part of the greening of American religion, eco-kosher is an indication of how rapidly environmental issues are entering the mainstream of religious life.

For many people, the primary daily impact of rising environmental consciousness is on the food they eat, which they want to be produced locally, sustainably, organically and humanely. Increasingly, religious people view this as a religious obligation, not just a matter of good health or ethics. The trend is advancing particularly fast among Jews, who have a long tradition of investing food with religious meaning.

A new ethical standard

Rabbi Michael Friedland, of Sinai Synagogue in South Bend, sees the movement as a response to the realities of modern food production, which has become more and more complex. "Many of us were affected deeply by the book 'Fast Food Nation,' " he said during a recent phone conversation. He remembers feeling disgust on learning that "the meat is produced with no respect for the animal" and workers in meat plants are not treated well.

Nigel S. Savage, who keeps a kosher household and edits a Web site, The Jew and Carrot (www.jcarrot.org) shares Friedland's sense that such

practices do not meet the requirements of his faith. "I would no sooner bring eggs from caged, battery-farmed hens into my home than I would shrimp or pork," Savage says. His Web site is devoted to what he calls "the new Jewish food movement."

The most dramatic expansion of eco-kosher principles is likely to come in the next few years as Conservative rabbis and congregations, which occupy the middle ground between Orthodox and Reform Judaism, create a new ethical standard for food production.

Justice certification

The Conservative seal of approval will not be based on traditional kosher requirements, such as separating meat from dairy products, avoiding pork and shellfish, and slaughtering animals with a sharp knife across the throat.

Rather, the Conservative "hechsher tzedek," Hebrew for "justice certification," will attest that a particular food was produced at a plant that meets ethical norms in six areas: fair wages and benefits, health and safety, training, corporate transparency, animal welfare and environmental impact.

Rabbi Morris Allen of Mendota Heights, Minn., head of the committee drafting the rules, said he hopes to have enforceable standards in place by Rosh Hashana (which begins at sundown on Wednesday this year). Within a year after that, he said, the justice certification should begin to appear on packaged foods.

The hechsher tzedek, Allen said, is meant to supplement, not replace, the traditional kosher certification, which is most often supervised by Orthodox agencies. But he does believe that if given the choice between a kosher item and a kosher item "produced by a company that respects its workers and the environment," most Jews will choose the latter.

The dark side

Friedland, a Conservative rabbi, pointed out that "with cow and veal, to keep the meat soft, the muscles soft, they don't let the animals move." Penned up, basically chained -- "It's not the way animals should live," he said.

"A person who takes 'kashrut' (kosher) seriously would say, 'You know, kashrut is not just what I'm sticking in my mouth, but "How did the animal get to be that way? How was the animal treated?" ' " Friedland said. And beyond that, he added, "Are the companies that produce this kosher food, do they follow decent labor practices?"

Kimelman-Block, who is married to a Conservative rabbi, recalls feeling ashamed after reading articles last year in the Jewish newspaper the Forward about the treatment of workers and cattle at a large kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa.

"I know that (the Iowa plant) is probably no worse than the other U.S. food processors, but they're doing it in the name of Judaism, in the name of holiness," she said. "That's the thing about kashrut -- it's supposed to be ethical, and it ... has this dark side that either people don't know about, or if they know about, they think it's irrelevant."

Broader definition of kosher

What it comes down to, Friedland said, is that "You understand kashrut in a very narrow way as just 'Food I'm putting into my mouth is following dietary laws.'

"Or, do you understand kashrut in a greater -- a broader way. That 'What I'm eating has been produced with respect for human beings, with respect for the animals, because eating is a way that I draw close to God.'

"It's one of the most mundane activities we do every day, and yet kashrut suggests that I can raise that mundane activity up to holiness and drawing close to God," Friedland said.

Visiting a slaughterhouse where immigrant workers were poorly trained changed the thinking of Allen. "Having promoted kashrut for 21 years and made it a central part of my rabbinate, all of a sudden it made sense to me: How could I be satisfied if the ritual aspects of kashrut were being followed but the way the workers were treated was degrading and contrary to Jewish ethical norms?" he said.

The whole process

It's much easier to buy food that follows the minimum kosher guidelines for putting food in your mouth, Friedland said. Milk and meat are kept separate. You know that not even a trace amount of a dairy product has been added to the bread of your meat sandwich to make the bread whiter or softer. The meat is kosher according to Jewish law.

But, Friedland added, "By limiting yourself to that narrow focus, you have to wonder if that is what God is really demanding of you. Or is there something more important?

"The prophets in the Bible used to rail against the people because they would offer sacrifices. We're coming up to Yom Kippur. In the biblical period, a key element of Jewish worship was offering an animal for various reasons.

"On the High Holy Days, we read a passage from Isaiah, where Isaiah basically says, 'I don't want your sacrifices.' " God didn't want the people's sacrifices, Friedland explained, and Isaiah railed against the people because they were "fraudulent toward one another. They would show disrespect to the poor and the needy in their community. Their society was corrupt." After bringing their animals to be sacrificed, Friedland said, they would say, "Now I'm clean."

Following the law in that strict or narrow sense is not enough, Friedland said. It does not fulfill its spirit.

"I think that's what the hechsher tzedek movement is trying to say. We really have to think, now that we know how complex the modern methods for food production are. We really can't pretend that it's just about limiting ourselves to the end production. We've got to be concerned with the whole process. Because how we eat connects us to God."

Affordability, keeping track of the labor practices of companies around the world, tracking down all the additives available and often used to enhance food, and discovering even the tiniest amounts of dairy products in foods, which the FDA doesn't regulate, are only some of the issues -- the pieces of the puzzle -- that kosher- observant Jews face.

Sinai Synagogue has created an environmental committee, Friedland said, to begin looking more closely at these issues. Whether they can afford to buy food with the hechsher tzedek label is "something we'll have to think about."

"I am grateful for what Rabbi Allen is doing," Friedland said. "The more transparency you have, the more you can control your own ethical choices. I think that's really important: that we should know what we're doing. And not knowing is convenient, but it's not right.

"And it's not what God expects of us."

Heksher Tzedek and Ki Tetze

by Rabbi Joel Wasser
Congregation Kol Ami
Tampa Florida

My initial forays into the world of kashrut were interesting, to say the least. Years ago, I had the honor of serving as a mashgiach at Camp Ramah in the Poconos. It was a huge operation. A not so simple 800 meals a day prepared ongoing – morning, noon, and night. And my job was to make sure that every single product was kosher, that every recipe was kosher, and to ensure that a fork left over from one meal wasn’t accidentally used at the next meal, of a different variety.

And because the institution was so very committed to kashrut, as well it should have been, I was given further instructions. Namely, I was told not, under any circumstances, to trust anything other than particular certifications. What that meant was that if a product harbored a kosher symbol other than the normative “OU” marking, that I had to call the company and do a background check on the rabbi who provided the certification. Who was he? From where did he receive his ordination? What were his stances on certain minutia of Jewish law? In the end, based on the answers to these questions, I was informed by my superiors in New York to dismiss many products that indeed did have formal - and what I believe were - legitimate kosher certifications. The level of scrutiny involved in the policies and their application left a terrible taste in my mouth, as the Camp in essence got caught up in political, as opposed to religious issues regarding the permissibility of the food. At that point in my life, I thought I had seen it all. But, as the famous line goes, “never say never”.

A few years later, Kashrut Magazine, a large, national publication, came out with a warning about… romaine lettuce, of all things. In the article, published by a noted mashgiach and Orthodox rabbi, the claim was advanced that romaine lettuce could not be used, unless it was first examined closely under heavy-duty lights and amidst intense scrutiny. The thinking went, that it was possible that infinitesimal bugs might make their way onto the back-side of the leafy vegetable, rendering it un-kosher. And as much as I am not a fan of infinitesimal bugs of any type, I couldn’t help but ask the reasonable question, “Well, why stop with heavy lights. Why not use a microscope as well?” Indeed, I thought I had seen it all. But, again, as the famous line goes, “never say never”.

Since moving to Florida, I have consumed more water daily, than ever before in my life. Look, we’re running around in the sun all day, the cars are 140 degrees inside most of the year, and dehydration is a constant concern to anyone who cares about health and wellbeing. And especially recently, I have noticed two things about the bottled water that we all drink aplenty. One, that it costs more than gas – which isn’t so easy to do these days – so, don’t ask me how. And two, that the vast majority of these water bottles have hasgacha – that is to say, that many companies pay some rabbi from some national organization to come in, watch over the production, and offer – mind you for a hefty fee – that the water (the WATER people!) is actually kosher.

The whole messy scenario reminds of the story of the tzadik who dies after a long, fruitful, and righteous life. The man gets to heaven and God himself meets the individual at the old pearly gates. The holy man says, “Gee, Hashem, I can’t believe that you are here to greet me! God responds by saying, “Look, you’ve led such a pious a wonderful life tat I just had to meet you here Myself. And even, better news…we’ve prepared a banquet for you. The fellow goes in to this grand hall, laden with every possible delicacy, herring and egg kichel included. Before they sit down to eat however, the very religious fellow turns to God and says, “Sorry to have to ask you, but who is the mashgiach here?” Hashem turns around and says, “Why, it’s Me of course”. The pious fellow reflexively responds- “We’ll, I’ll have the salad”. I guess he was confident of the absence of romaine lettuce!

Yet, being kosher, my friends, undoubtedly comes in various forms and guises. While principally and most commonly it has to do with food and pervasively dictates what we as Jews ingest, there are other applications as well, one of which finds a central place in this week’s Torah reading.

In our pasrha, Ki Tetze, we encounter an interesting mitzvah about environment. The portion reads:

"When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard you may eat of the grapes until you have enough at your own pleasure… when you come into your neighbor’s standing corn, you may pluck ears with your hand… "

At first glance, the commandment may seem merely like some bizarre license for theft or freeloading. But of course, this is not the case, nor the essence of the teaching. In her commentary on the Torah, the famous 20th century Israel exegete, Nahama Leibowitz, elucidates the hidden context. Citing the Torah Temimah, she suggests that the commandment is present to address labor law. Specifically, she offers that what the commandment is addressing is the case of a worker and his job place. What the directive is teaching is that an employer harbors an ethical obligation to allow his or her employees the benefit of rest and sustenance while at work - even if those provisions have to come out of he employer’s own pocket. She writes:

"The Torah grants the laborer this privilege on the grounds that it would raise his morale, physical and spiritual, thereby improving his efficiency and productivity, in the interest of the owner himself. He will work with greater drive if he des not have to use his own wages on his own food."

The point of this teaching is not merely to address whether or not the company buys it’s workers lunch here and there, or whether the boss hosts a come as you are holiday party at a particular season. Obviously, our economic context is far different than that envisioned in antiquity. Yet, the eternally compelling aspect of this teaching has to do with how Biblical law sought to create safe and dignified contexts for all of our employees. Indeed, later codes, specifically the Shulchan Aruch, have enormous volumes dedicated to the importance of business ethics and codes that inform proper dealings with employees. Everyone should be treated with respect, dignity, and honor.

Recently, there has begun a unique national initiative under the auspices of the Conservative Rabbinate in this country. Created and motivated by a colleague in Minneapolis, the project seeks to create a new type of hasgacha – a new type of kosher marking. Yet, instead of commenting merely on the products and their suitability for the kosher consumer, the program seeks to investigate if the given companies are treating their employees in an ethical and just manner. As such, companies that employ child laborers cannot receive this marker, no matter how kosher their ingredients might be. Companies that abuse foreign workers cannot receive the marker, no matter how suitable their by-products may be for those who are punctilious. Companies that refuse to pay overtime or take advantage of the simple laborer in any fashion, similarly, cannot receive this marker, called a hechsher tzedek.

Only the future will tell if this interesting ethical initiative will take hold; or, on the other hand, if the kosher consumer will actually even stop to care about its lofty goals. Be that as it may, what the bold project does do, is challenge us to consider the meaning of the term “kosher” on its broadest of levels. Sure, the food we eat can be kosher or not. But, the manner in which we speak, act, and do business, can also, according to our tradition, be deemed “kosher” or not.

In the end, the point is that what we see transpiring here is a most lofty goal. It asks us to appreciate that the concept of being kosher is really, really big in Jewish life. But, in it’s most authentic and comprehensive form “kosher” is not only about ritual, but it’s about ethics as well. “Kosher” is rooted in how we deal with our responsibilities to God, but it applies to our interaction with mankind as well. “Kosher” is surely about the transcendent, but never at the expense of immanent obligations and duties.

By challenging companies to be completely kosher, the hechsher tzedek program is also challenging each and every one of us to consider how kosher are we? Not merely in terms of what we eat. But, in terms of how we deal with people, with immanent realities, and with the complexities of a world situation that might otherwise be disinterested in the broadest of applications.

Heksher Tzedek Expresses Judaism's Compassionate View of Humanity

Readers Response to Hechsher Tzedek Will Divide Conservative and Orthodox Jews
by Jeanine Lange
American Jewish World August 3, 2007

Hechsher Tzedek, the initiative to insure that ethical laws are given just as much consideration as ritual laws in the production of kosher food, has struck a chord across the Jewish world and beyond. Hechsher Tzedek is a ray of hope in a world where big business is king, where it seems workers, the environment and animals are just so many commodities to be used and discarded. Hechsher Tzedek shows the world that Judaism is about compassion for the stranger, caring for the other, treating people decently even if these people are used to a lower standard of living having come from countries poorer than our own; Hechsher Tzedek shows the world that Judaism is concerned about our environment and concerned about the treatment of animals. Hechsher Tzedek shows the world that religious people aren't just interested in their own personal observances but are also totally engaged with and concerned about the world around them.

Jews and non-Jews, from all backgrounds have come forward to say they support Hechsher Tzedek. Non-Jews are even talking about how they can incorporate justice, ethical standards, into their observances in ways that would be meaningful to them. Jews are speaking up, embarrassed to read in the papers about allegations of mistreatment of workers and animals. "What good does it do to follow kashrut if I do so at the expense of others, at the expense of the world around me, at the expense of my conscience?" Sweeping allegations under the rug, rushing in to try to squelch the story, trying to push the responsibility off on government agencies already understaffed and overworked, is not going to increase observance of kashrut. Combining ethics, letting us know that the food we are required to eat has been produced with consideration for the laws between one person and another as well as the laws between us and God, could well be the key to increasing the observance of kashrut.

Hechsher Tzedek is not driving a wedge between Conservative and Orthodox Jews. Hechsher Tzedek is instead bringing kashrut front and center to many of our lives, sometimes for the first time. Hechsher Tzedek is drawing people together across religious boundaries to say, we want to know which kosher food producers consider ethics to be just as important as all the details required by ritual. We can't pretend any longer that everything is fine, and will remain fine, in the world of kashrut. Allegations have been made and we want to know what is going on. If there are no problems in the world of kashrut, if all the allegations are false, then there will not be any problem affixing a Hechsher Tzedek to these products. We just want to know. We will not go back to quietly living our own lives, business as usual, nor should anyone ask us to do so. It is a sad thing that there are some who would try to keep all of us from being able to easily know the truth about the food we are purchasing and consuming. We're all on the same side. Hechsher Tzedek is a good thing, for the Jewish world and for the world around us.

The Growth of a Concept-Heksher Tzedek takes off!!

It has been a busy time for those of us working on Hechsher Tzedek. Last week, while I was at Camp Ramah-Wisconsin, I had the opportunity to teach about Hechsher Tzedek in a variety of settings. The excitement and the response was truly moving. We are hopeful to be able to post some of the responses to a recent trip to Postville by a group of 15-year old campers. They were able to see the many positive things happening inside the community as well as better understand the reality of what it means to be a line worker in a factory setting.

On Tuesday night, July 17, I participated in a Hechsher Tzedek forum at Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Minnetonka. It was a very exciting gathering. On a humid summer night, well over 70 people came to hear about the importance of Hechsher Tzedek. The crowd was diverse and the enthusiasm was very real. Clearly, the concept of making explicit the connection between mitzvot bein adam lhavero (commandments between one person and another) and mitzvot bein adam lmakom(commandments between a person and GOD) is something that touches the neshama of Jews. For too long, ritual and ethical commandments have been seen as independent categories that need not influence one or the other. But Judaism does not want us to live our lives that way. Rabbi Aaron Brusso, in introducing the program, quoted Rav Kook, the first chief Rabbi of Israel who decried the notion that there were Jews who saw passion in ritual life and ignored the pleas of humanity , and there were other Jews who heard the cries but found so little meaning in ritual living. Hechsher Tzedek is a powerful means of demonstrating the possibility of linkage. Hechsher Tzedek is a way to demonstrate that kashrut animates the life of the Jew in all of our ways of experiencing the world.

The only sad moment in the evening was when one individual wanted to know why we were so involved in "attacking other Jews." In truth, we have done everything possible to refrain from any attacks. I pointed out to the questioner that the only attacks I have seen have been from certain rabbis who have chosen to vilify and slander me and the Conservative movement for raising these issues. We have chosen and will continue to choose to stay above the line. We believe that the support for Hechsher Tzedek will come from all streams of Jewish life, and that the vast majority of Jews see in Hechsher Tzedek an opportunity for demonstrating that beauty of Jewish belief and practice.

We are hopeful that by Rosh Hashana, the objective, verifiable standards that can be used in evaluating for the Hechsher Tzedek will be announced. At that point, the next phase of this sacred undertaking will begin. As we focus during these days leading to Tisha B'av, let us not lose sight of the famous gemara in Bava Metzia that said the Temple was destroyed because judges could not understand the full meaning of the law they were asked to judge. By limiting their rulings to the letter and not considering the ethical dimension of the law, they created the fertile ground for the Temple's destruction. It was the gemara's way of saying that the separation of ethical demands from ritual demands can be disastrous. Let us never fall prey to that thinking again.

PETA VIDEO AND THE NEED FOR HEKSHER TZEDEK

I am teaching this week at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. Access to the internet is limited, but discussion concerning Hechsher Tzedek is going full speed ahead. The classes and sessions I have been privileged to share in this week so far have convinced me that Hechsher Tzedek will be a powerful and positive addition to the kashrut industry. I will write more about this in the coming days.

My morning has been taken up with calls concerning the latest PETA video which was released concerning Agriprocessors. Their plant in Gordon, Nebraska has come under similar surveillance to the Agri plant in Postville circa 2004. In a video which states it was taped in May of 2007, terrible violations of humane treatment of animals following shehita are shown. What this video demonstrates is just how important it is for the Hechsher Tzedek to move forward as quickly as logistically possible. The need to address the following areas in an objective and verifiable way remains an important and necessary undertaking. The Conservative movement's foray into these areas will elevate the observance and meaning of kashrut. The six areas necessary to address are a) wages and benefits; b)health and safety; c)training; d)corporate transparency; e) environmental impact and f) animal welfare. The Peta video clearly demonstrates that unless this last area is considered part of the Hechsher Tzedek process abuse of animals will continue. And yet, unless the first three areas are considered, abuse of human beings could also continue.

Heksher Tzedek and Torah

I've just been thinking about the deal with Moses and the mountain. After spending many days on the mountain, Moses came down carrying the two tablets. When he finally came into range of other people again, he became so enraged at what he saw that he smashed the tablets on the ground.

Perhaps it is that the more time people spend on mountains, the less they can relate to everyone else, the less patience they have with human failings. There's the story in Judaism of the rabbi and his son who studied Torah for years as they hid in a cave in order to escape the Romans. When they came out they were so lacking in compassion that God made them go back into the cave until they could change their attitudes, which to my way of thinking means they finally truly learned Torah.

It seems to me that when those who claim to be very religious isolate themselves from the world, they merely become more and more critical of everyone who isn't them rather than becoming more holy. There seems to be little patience with differences and the language used when talking about others? Truly appalling. Is that really what it means to be religious? In my view these actions have again left Torah shattered on the ground only the people around don't even seem to realize. They guard these broken pieces like hawks and hinder anyone who attempts to climb the mountain to get whole tablets again.

Perhaps Hechsher Tzedek will get us past these obstacles so that new, whole tablets will finally reach all the people; tablets which will be carried with compassion and righteousness rather than with derision towards, and judgment of, others.

Maybe that's the story of the red heifer, too. It's not the impure that makes pure, the pure that makes impure, it's the perception. In order to be truly pure, truly holy, you have to be around what you might consider 'impure'. If you try to stay away from the 'impure' because you think you're so pure, you yourself will become the truly impure. Perhaps the story of the red heifer has nothing to do with actual purity or impurity, but is only about what happens to us depending on how we interact with those around us.

Heksher Tzedek: Kashrut for the Next Generation (HECHSHER TZEDEK)

I grew up in a Kosher home. When I was 16 years old, and a camper at Ramah Wisconsin, Rabbi Samuel Dresner (z"l) came and spoke to many of us about the significance and importance of kashrut. He was the author of the "Jewish Dietary Laws-Their Meaning in Our Time." Rabbi Dresner continually promoted the importance of Kashrut throughout his lifetime, making it a central aspect of his rabbinate. Clearly that lesson some 36 years ago had impact on me. This coming week, I will be returning to Ramah Wisconsin to teach about Hechsher Tzedek. I will begin by stressing the importance of keeping Kosher. I will then explore with these 16 year old campers the importance of not relegating our ethical laws to the background in our pursuit of ritual obligation. Later this summer, these same campers will be making a visit to a kosher meat packing plant. Instead of being able to only address the laws of kashrut as it applies to slaughter and processing, they will also be able to address the meaning of Jewish law as it applies to human dignity and employee-employer relationships. I have no idea what the effect of my teaching will be on these campers--36 years from now. What I do know is that if one camper is particularly moved to make kashrut a more central aspect of their life and see in Hechsher Tzedek the meaning of kashrut for the next generation of Jews, then my visit will have been worthwhile. Yesterday, when being interviewed by a newspaper reporter, he suggested to me that this may be the first time a religious denomination has undertaken a campaign on behalf of workers( and where appropriate-animals) in food production. I think many people are beginning to understand that just as we must be concerned about how an animal is killed, so too do we need to be concerned about a how a worker lives.

Heksher Tzedek Briefing Sessions

Jewish Community Action in conjunction with Beth Jacob Congregation will offer "Hechsher Tzedek Briefing Sessions" to other congregations and Jewish institutions.

Once members of other congregations have seen the briefing session, the hope is that they will offer the sessions to multiple groups within their shul. These sessions will be a critical part of educating and involving kosher consumers (and others). Such community education will be critical to persuading producers to change their practices.

The sessions will:

Educate members of the Jewish community about the Hechsher Tzedek campaign

Educate members of the Jewish community about Jewish law relating to kashrut and Jewish teachings relating to worker rights/social justice

Create positive "buzz" and excitement about Hechsher Tzedek

Identify potential supporters/volunteers

Provide supporters/volunteers with opportunities to become involved in the campaign

Gauge community response to the campaign

The briefings will be developed and delivered by lay leaders, Jewish Community Action, and Rabbis.


Suzanne Bring
Development Director
Jewish Community Action